Welcome back!
Sign in to start taking action.

Thanks for signing up as a global citizen. In order to create your account we need you to provide your email address. You can check out our Privacy Policy to see how we safeguard and use the information you provide us with. If your Facebook account does not have an attached e-mail address, you'll need to add that before you can sign up.

Despite their miniature size, microbeads are a major threat to the environment.

Often invisible to the naked eye, the tiny plastics are found in everyday cosmetic products like body scrubs, face washes, toothpaste and cleaning products. A single shower can result in
100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean.

Andrea Leadsom, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
has said:
"Adding plastic to products like face washes and body scrubs is wholly unnecessary when harmless alternatives can be used.

"Most people would be dismayed to know the face scrub or toothpaste they use was causing irreversible damage to the environment, with billions of indigestible plastic pieces poisoning sea creatures."

Environmental groups have welcomed the move, although they argue that banning microbeads in cosmetics is just one step in the fight to protect the oceans from all kinds of plastic.

“It’s a credit to Theresa May’s government that they’ve listened to concerns from the public, scientists, and MPs and taken a first step towards banning microbeads,” said the Greeanpeace's oceans campaigner Louise Edge, quoted in
The Guardian.
“But marine life doesn’t distinguish between plastic from a face wash and plastic from a washing detergent, so it makes no sense for this ban to be limited to some products and not others, as is currently proposed.” The movement therefore calls for a wider ban on
all plastic in any household product that can be washed down the drain.

The UK’s decision follows the US and Canada, who have both pledged to ban microbeads by 2017. Building on the success of the 5p bag charge, which has already
reduced the use of plastic bags in Britain by 85%
, the ban on microbeads is another positive step towards a cleaner planet — making sure having a shower does not have to be an act of pollution.